Lieutenant Commander Takeuchi Hajime & POWs of the USS Pope

[UncleBourbon]

Source: 3-page article from Japanese text (publ. by Soshi-sha? not sure if a book or zine piece) sent to me after translation into English quite a few years ago.

Thank you very much, I'm glad that photo you mentioned could be found!

One of the reasons Kudo received 'all the credit' (or has become more widely known)

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply Kudo wasn't deserving of credit or recognition, but meant my confusion over him being accredited with ultimately rescuing the Pope survivors, when it seemed Takeuchi was the one to apply credit to for that act.

Now that I'm aware Kudo tried at first before being unable/ordered not to, in part due to resistance by Pope's crew, I fully understand why.

Hello,

It was a little confused for me, so I organized it based on this book for miself. This book describes in detail.
恵隆之介 敵兵を救助せよ！ Rescue the enemies! written by Megumi Ryunosuke
Partially available on the internet.
http://www.bushido-seishin.com/outline/story.html

At March 3rd Ikazuchi on alert found survivors of Pope got on 8 cutters and 7 rubber boats. Ikazuchi sent a signal saying, "Get in me," but Pope survivors refused and demanded that they be towed. This towing had to slow down the Ikazuch speed and could be hit by torpedoes from enemy submarines. When she contacted the headquarters of VADM Takahashi Ibo, She was ordered to "Stop the rescue and join them", so Ikazuchi obeyed it. On the next day, Inazuma replaced Ikazuchi found Pope survivors again. Perhaps because of exhaustion, 151 Pope survivors boarded Inazuma obediently. Some of Pope's survivers blamed this "rescue interruption" after the war. But was that so? "Rescue work" was done by stopping our ship. During this time she was a good target for enemy submarines. They were dangerous area where 7 Japanese ships were sunk by enemy submarines from February 27th to March 1st. Both Ikazuchi and Inazuma performed dangerous rescue work for "seamanship".

In addition to more IJN data, I reread some POPE survivor accounts that I have, too, and NONE mention this incident at all. Very intriguing. I suspect they did not wish to acknowledge the serious (potentially mortal) mistake they'd made...

HOWEVER: the pix shown here of POPE's survivors cannot be from INAZUMA, because POPE's men were rescued in the night, just after midnight in fact, and the DD that picked them up did so by turning her lights on briefly, etc. when the U.S. survivors signaled in the dark with a battle lantern.
So, these photos must be from IKAZUCHI's brief encounter...

My sincerest thanks both for contributing the 'missing' photos, and further clarifying the order of events while providing extra detail into them.

This is a subject that has bothered me for some time now, since information on Kudo and British survivors is available in English given Sir Sam's account, while the American element has largely been unaddressed, when it was an aspect of the incident I found most interesting given how US-Japanese encounters in the Pacific War would develop.

It's somewhat sad a lot of the Pope survivor accounts leave out this incident; while the string of boats and rafts was ridiculous, the ultimate rescue by Takeuchi was a bright event in a dark conflict. I'll try to look through some as well, in hopes there's one containing something regarding this.

Again, thank you very much!

[KevDen]

[

One of the reasons Kudo received 'all the credit' (or has become more widely known)

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply Kudo wasn't deserving of credit or recognition, but meant my confusion over him being accredited with ultimately rescuing the Pope survivors, when it seemed Takeuchi was the one to apply credit to for that act.

No apologies necessary, I did not take your statement to mean you yoursel cast doubt on Kudo, I was just emphasizing the fact that it was he who got 'all the credit' primarily because of Sir Sam's 'input' over the years as it were.

All in all this has been a very enlightening thread with fontessa's translation of part of Kudo's book, and the photos from same, being especially valuable. So, thanks to everyone for all their input!

[KevDen]

Or as you say above Don, if they were rescued at night, was it just into the morning of 4th when their rescue completed?
Yes, just after midnight according to the Japanese.

Opps, missed this post when I made my reply above.

So, thanks for the confirmation!

Then regards a previous comment of yours re the last pic in fontessa's post entitled "USSurvivers2 - Pope survivors on Inazuma" is actually them being on Ikazuchi (which I agree certainly seems more plausible / likely given the photos' 'setting' and rescue 'timing's).

Correct?